Death Row Briton Loses Appeal

The Guardian � 1/12/00
The Florida Supreme Court has refused to overturn the murder convictions of a Briton on death row, clearing the way for a new sentencing hearing.

Former millionaire Krishna Maharaj's original death sentence was overturned three years ago by a Miami judge who upheld Maharaj's murder convictions.

Yesterday's ruling in Tallahassee, the state capital, clears the way for a new sentencing hearing. In arguments last December, Maharaj's lawyer pleaded that the convictions should be erased because, he said, Maharaj's first judge requested a bribe.

Although the judge, Howard Gross, was arrested on charges that he accepted bribes in other cases halfway through Maharaj's 1987 trial, a lawyer for the state argued there was no proof of a bribe being requested in Maharaj's case.

Maharaj was offered a mistrial but declined it and another judge finished the trial.

Lawyers representing the English bar, the House of Lords and members of the European Parliament told Florida's high court that Maharaj's 1987 trial did not meet international standards for fairness.

Maharaj was convicted of the 1986 murders of a Jamaican father and son living in South Florida. Derrick and Duane Moo Young were fatally shot in the Dupont Plaza Hotel in Miami. Maharaj was given the death sentence for Duane's murder and life in prison for Derrick's murder.

Maharaj, 61, was born in Trinidad when it was a British possession. He moved to London in 1960 and started spending time in Florida in 1985.

Once a millionaire with the second-largest string of racehorses in Britain, Maharaj is now a poor man, according to his wife, Marita Maharaj of Fort Lauderdale.